Great, so when i accidentally connect to "Linksys" instead of "Linksys", i have to set a freaking court date and take time off work to explain that to a judge? Someone has to pay the judge to be there, while i lose money being there. You seriously don't think it would be better to just keep the laws the way they are, where we only punish people who do something malicious on a network? If someone doesn't secure their network, and i use it to check my e-mail and then leave, do you seriously think i committed a crime? Hell, i used to keep a firewalled unsecured network at my house alongside the secured one, so neighbors needing internet could have it, and so people visiting my house had easy setup. I want to be able to allow people to do that without them being accused of committing a crime!
-Taylor
Heh, yours must be defective, i'd return her if i were you. Mine happily allows me to freely access her as needed with little work, and doesn't mind if i share some of my content with others, so long as it's only a temporary license (none of that annoying spyware either). I guess if your girl was an MS product, mine would be Linux - with compiz thrown in, 'cause she's actually cute too!;)
I just hope i don't find out down the line that i shouldn't have skipped that annoying EULA that came up at first...
-Taylor
Though i disagree with your theory on democrats "stealing" an election, this is otherwise a really good point. I never realized how much those two parallel eachother, but gambling machines are absolutely the best example you could bring up on an important established system that is regulated to ensure accuracy and all that. Most people care more about their money than they do about their vote (sadly), so brining up that point might help people see why we so badly need regulation on these, as well as demonstrate that it is entirely reasonable and plausible to expect that kind of auditing on such machines.
I'm sorry, my interest in this story was completely overshadowed by the lack of comprehensible English in the posting...
"Stirke"
or
"Episodes will be broadcast as a series on ESPNU and ESPN2 after filmed at the competition..."
What? Me talk good english too...
-Taylor
I met Jacobi, the lead singer from Papa Roach, one time after a concert. I had nothing for him to sign except for maybe an old receipt, and i was kinda bummed, but then i finally realized, why not my cell phone!? It didn't make a lot of sense except that it was something i had one me that i knew i wouldn't lose, but i had him sign it anyway (under the battery cover, which is odd probably, but i knew it wouldn't get rubbed off there). Shortly after that my cell phone's screen broke, and i got a new one. I kept the old one though, and it still kicks around my room 3 years later. I actually showed it to a friend last night when the band came up in conversation. I knew the cell phone would become obsolete, but 3 years later it is still cool to me that Jacobi signed it.
My situation is a bit different, but still, think of it this way: How awesome would it be to have an original NES from launch day that was signed by the console's developers, maybe with some artwork from one of the art guys who made Super Mario Brothers? That would be F*ing amazing, actually. This console was the same way, i wish i had one like his, and every time i played it i'd be stoked, and my friends would be jealous. Fifteen years from now i'd pop in a halo disc and play it for nostalgia. Hell, i spent damn near my entire sophomore year of college playing Halo 2 with my friends, i'm sure the game and console will have personal value for many years to come. In fact, that's why i spent an extra $50 on my console to get the Halo 3 special edition 360 - it's cool - (well, and at the time it was the only one to have HDMI, but really it was the artwork that sold me). This guy's console is even cooler - did you RTFA? That artwork was sweet!
So, no offense, but it seems you've missed the point. You may not feel the same way about the xbox, but many people REALLY like it, and that guy's xbox was incredibly awesome. I can only hope that the original signers track this guy down and offer to sign it again! -Taylor
Damn, i never even knew you could do that, heh...
Still, my mom has to take notes on how to copy text from a word document to paste into the body of an e-mail... and even with notes she still has trouble with it. Somehow i bet she'd have trouble with that! But then, i don't know of any OS that WOULD actually be helpful to her, the whole concept of menus and whatnot just confuses her.
-Taylor
Thanks for that, the Vista haters are just starting to make this ridiculous. Vista's not as solid as XP, but it is far more reliable than i've ever seen it made out here on/., and it's articles like this that only perpetuate this. I'm sure the average linux user would easily just take this article as further proof that "M$" is evil and Vista sucks, but most of them have never spent much time with vista, so it's hard to set the record straight!
-Taylor
I agree! I'm really surprised that this guy couldn't get these games to work, because every small issue i've had with software in vista (which is pretty rare, though more common than XP obviously), i just fiddle with compatibility mode or admin mode, and i can make it work. Sure, it's not always intuitive (if you normally click on a shortcut to open a program, you'll have to find the actual.exe to change compatibility settings... a task i know my mother could never do), but it's really not that big of a deal... Vista problems? WTF?
-Taylor
I do this, and i can really easily explain why i do it.
Most of my texting occurs in between all the times i'm really doing something. Lets say i'm waiting for some code to compile (feel free to reference XKCD anyone) and i only have 30 seconds of down time. I can't call someone, because i'll be busy in just a moment anyway, but I can send them a text, and i have the freedom to respond again whenever i have another small spat of down time. By that same virtue, my text gives them something to read and respond to in between their bits of real work, and gives them the freedom to respond when it's convenient. It's mostly small talk anyway, lots of pointless conversation that isn't worth calling the person for. But mostly it just gives me something to do on my short bits of downtime, with the perk of letting me communicate with friends. I don't have to worry if they're free to answer the phone, because if they're busy they'll just read my text later. It works very well.
-Taylor
Fewest vulnerabilities doesn't mean it has the fewest flaws... Freezing, poor driver support, poor program support, these things are flaws, yet have nothing to do with security vulnerabilities. I love vista, i've run it since the betas and run a legal copy of ultimate that i paid for with my own money, and i've been able to generally make stuff work, but having to use workarounds to make stuff work is a flaw, in my opinion, and having good security is nice, but not if a bunch of stuff i've used for years doesn't work. I want to be an MS fanboy but i can't. I use vista at home because i can deal with it's shit, but i buy a new computer at the office, i make sure it has XP, because reliability is king at work. Lack of a reliability is too big of a deal to leave it out of the category of "flaws"...
-Taylor
In practice this rarely happens though, at least to me. If some nutjob seriously was harassing you with lots of texts, your probably could get a refund if you called customer service and explained the situation. It's rare enough that i think they'd be okay with that.
Besides, yes, we have to pay for incoming texts, but that's factored into most plans so most of the time they're all still "free" within the bounds of the plan. Assuming we don't go over our limit, it doesn't matter which party gets a text deducted from that limit, does it? We all pay to support the network in the end...
-Taylor
I guess that if people need help choosing a car, there are too many features too? And Computers. Oh, and microwaves. Oh, and toasters. Yeah, they all have too many features if anyone exists that doesn't know enough on their own... We should all have the same phone, so no decision is necessary. Oh, and the same cars. And computers. And microwaves. Toasters though, those are okay as is.
Variety is good, and not everyone will always know what they need. This is a natural part of a diverse market, and i'm certainly happy about it. I love my phone, but it's complicated as hell, and there are many people i wouldn't recommend it to, but they'd need an "expert" like me to explain why, and that doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If we did was you proposed and simplified them all, i'd be very disappointed... Hardly seems like a good solution then eh?
-Taylor
Really? You include friends in that description... Is it really "ridiculous" if a friend wants to get coffee and doesn't want to bother you with a phone call? Texting is great because you can get the message just by looking at your phone, whenever you want, rather than answering it, which is often inconvenient and is certainly far more of a distraction than a text is.
I'm just curious is all...
-Taylor
I just got a Thecus N2100 NAS for our office, and it rocks. It runs linux, so you can do whatever you want with it if you know how, but even if you don't (like me), it is still really easy to use. It holds 2 HDDs and i've mirrored them for safety, set up all the computers in the office to connect to it (on 2 different wired networks... it has 2 network ports, and can even be modded for wireless), and even set up FTP access for when i'm at home. It also functions as a USB print server that has some quirks but should be great for normal use, acts as an iTunes sharing device (shows up in the itunes shared computers sections), supports UPnP, and pretty much anything else you can throw at it. It was $275 or so without drives, and i love it! Oh, and it's also super silent.
-Taylor
here's the URL: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822102012
I've noticed that... I'm not a CS or a CE, i'm an ME, and i build robots. I'm great at the mechanical side but i always talk to Computer Engineers or CS majors, trying to see what they can do for me, and all i've surmised is that they just aren't taught anything useful! Sure, there's probably all kinds of great theory and whatnot, and that's all very important, but at the end they should have a class that teaches them the useful stuff! I say that because the guys i've spoken to were never taught how to make ANY kind of GUI, and have no idea how to send data out a serial port (something often neglected but very useful in robotics). In fact, even the head of the Computer Engineering dept at my school (Santa Clara University, supposedly 14th in the country for engineering) didn't know how to talk to a serial port. And not teaching how to make a GUI? I mean, i know you can figure it out, but then, what is the point of school? I know not all software goes to consumers, but if it does it had better have a GUI, so why not teach at least the basics!? And hardware output - either from the serial port or programming USB peripherals - is incredibly useful, yet seems to be completely left out of today's undergrad programs, and that seems insane!
What has been your experience with this stuff?
-Taylor
Yeah, but most of those are terrible for displaying computer output - most of what you listed are analog, which we obviously used for a long time, but analog video is obsolete now, so when you ask "do we need another interface?", if you're suggesting the analog methods are suffient, i'd say you're on crack. As for the new digital methods, i really only see DVI-D, HDMI, UDI, and DisplayPort for the dedicated display connections (sure there's USB and firewire, but until we get a universal connection method that is truly fast enough, and create video cards that can crunch high quality video while relaying it to said universal ports, i don't count those as viable formats for mainstream display connections). There's also wireless methods, but they're not there yet either. My point is this: Do we need another format? Well, unless there is a current method that is sufficient for every possible current and forseeable future use, then the answer is yes, yes we do need another format. Since the analog ones are all terrible for today's digital displays and pixel-perfect (compared to analog) world, they're useless. Since the dell 30 incher's at least used to require TWO dvi connections, it seems like that's not good enough. I don't know enough about HDMI, UDI, or DisplayPort to judge between them, but if we've only got 3 possible connection methods that MIGHT even be ideal for today's technology, do we really have too many connection possibilities as you implied? -Taylor
Well, like you said, YOU hate reruns. I fail to see how what YOU hate has any bearing on what other people enjoy at all...
Some people love reruns.
-Taylor
Some books are written in the second person... Those claim "YOU" do certain actions, yet no one complains about those... (not that there are many, but still).
-Taylor
Are you sure this is a normal feature of itunes and not a bad accident? It wouldn't make much sense... I've never uninstalled itunes, now that i think of it, but it sounds like you may have been just unlucky...
And i love itunes. I don't need to qualify myself as techie or i wouldn't be here, but um, it works fine - it manages the files so i don't have to. When i want to add music i just drag it to itunes, and it moves the files to the necessary locations without me having to open explorer and do it manually. I can quickly make playlists, and listening to a specific artist is as fast as typing their name in the bar. I don't use an ipod, or any other DAP, 'cause i've found that i feel antisocial when i use them in public, and in my car i have a stereo with USB that's got 8 gigs of music on it, but itunes is great for just listening to music... What else do you want to do with it? Yeah, it used RAM and all that, but shouldn't techie's have fast enough computers not to notice anyway?
-Taylor
E-paper is static - it stays where you left it, so you refresh it once per page and then remove power. That's what makes it so great for book reading and power comsumption. And yeah, like people mentioned, LCD's don't redraw pixels unless they change color.
-Taylor
Slashdot Mirror
Great, so when i accidentally connect to "Linksys" instead of "Linksys", i have to set a freaking court date and take time off work to explain that to a judge? Someone has to pay the judge to be there, while i lose money being there. You seriously don't think it would be better to just keep the laws the way they are, where we only punish people who do something malicious on a network? If someone doesn't secure their network, and i use it to check my e-mail and then leave, do you seriously think i committed a crime? Hell, i used to keep a firewalled unsecured network at my house alongside the secured one, so neighbors needing internet could have it, and so people visiting my house had easy setup. I want to be able to allow people to do that without them being accused of committing a crime! -Taylor
Heh, yours must be defective, i'd return her if i were you. Mine happily allows me to freely access her as needed with little work, and doesn't mind if i share some of my content with others, so long as it's only a temporary license (none of that annoying spyware either). I guess if your girl was an MS product, mine would be Linux - with compiz thrown in, 'cause she's actually cute too! ;)
I just hope i don't find out down the line that i shouldn't have skipped that annoying EULA that came up at first...
-Taylor
Though i disagree with your theory on democrats "stealing" an election, this is otherwise a really good point. I never realized how much those two parallel eachother, but gambling machines are absolutely the best example you could bring up on an important established system that is regulated to ensure accuracy and all that. Most people care more about their money than they do about their vote (sadly), so brining up that point might help people see why we so badly need regulation on these, as well as demonstrate that it is entirely reasonable and plausible to expect that kind of auditing on such machines.
How could we have gotten so screwed up?
-Taylor
I'm sorry, my interest in this story was completely overshadowed by the lack of comprehensible English in the posting... "Stirke" or "Episodes will be broadcast as a series on ESPNU and ESPN2 after filmed at the competition..." What? Me talk good english too... -Taylor
I met Jacobi, the lead singer from Papa Roach, one time after a concert. I had nothing for him to sign except for maybe an old receipt, and i was kinda bummed, but then i finally realized, why not my cell phone!? It didn't make a lot of sense except that it was something i had one me that i knew i wouldn't lose, but i had him sign it anyway (under the battery cover, which is odd probably, but i knew it wouldn't get rubbed off there). Shortly after that my cell phone's screen broke, and i got a new one. I kept the old one though, and it still kicks around my room 3 years later. I actually showed it to a friend last night when the band came up in conversation. I knew the cell phone would become obsolete, but 3 years later it is still cool to me that Jacobi signed it.
My situation is a bit different, but still, think of it this way: How awesome would it be to have an original NES from launch day that was signed by the console's developers, maybe with some artwork from one of the art guys who made Super Mario Brothers? That would be F*ing amazing, actually. This console was the same way, i wish i had one like his, and every time i played it i'd be stoked, and my friends would be jealous. Fifteen years from now i'd pop in a halo disc and play it for nostalgia. Hell, i spent damn near my entire sophomore year of college playing Halo 2 with my friends, i'm sure the game and console will have personal value for many years to come. In fact, that's why i spent an extra $50 on my console to get the Halo 3 special edition 360 - it's cool - (well, and at the time it was the only one to have HDMI, but really it was the artwork that sold me). This guy's console is even cooler - did you RTFA? That artwork was sweet!
So, no offense, but it seems you've missed the point. You may not feel the same way about the xbox, but many people REALLY like it, and that guy's xbox was incredibly awesome. I can only hope that the original signers track this guy down and offer to sign it again!
-Taylor
And the worst part is that all the photos are of paris hilton.
Though in this situation, maybe rosie o'donnel fits better?
-Taylor
Damn, i never even knew you could do that, heh... Still, my mom has to take notes on how to copy text from a word document to paste into the body of an e-mail... and even with notes she still has trouble with it. Somehow i bet she'd have trouble with that! But then, i don't know of any OS that WOULD actually be helpful to her, the whole concept of menus and whatnot just confuses her. -Taylor
Thanks for that, the Vista haters are just starting to make this ridiculous. Vista's not as solid as XP, but it is far more reliable than i've ever seen it made out here on /., and it's articles like this that only perpetuate this. I'm sure the average linux user would easily just take this article as further proof that "M$" is evil and Vista sucks, but most of them have never spent much time with vista, so it's hard to set the record straight!
-Taylor
I agree! I'm really surprised that this guy couldn't get these games to work, because every small issue i've had with software in vista (which is pretty rare, though more common than XP obviously), i just fiddle with compatibility mode or admin mode, and i can make it work. Sure, it's not always intuitive (if you normally click on a shortcut to open a program, you'll have to find the actual .exe to change compatibility settings... a task i know my mother could never do), but it's really not that big of a deal... Vista problems? WTF?
-Taylor
Aren't the robots supposed to take over the world soon anyway? -Taylor
I do this, and i can really easily explain why i do it. Most of my texting occurs in between all the times i'm really doing something. Lets say i'm waiting for some code to compile (feel free to reference XKCD anyone) and i only have 30 seconds of down time. I can't call someone, because i'll be busy in just a moment anyway, but I can send them a text, and i have the freedom to respond again whenever i have another small spat of down time. By that same virtue, my text gives them something to read and respond to in between their bits of real work, and gives them the freedom to respond when it's convenient. It's mostly small talk anyway, lots of pointless conversation that isn't worth calling the person for. But mostly it just gives me something to do on my short bits of downtime, with the perk of letting me communicate with friends. I don't have to worry if they're free to answer the phone, because if they're busy they'll just read my text later. It works very well. -Taylor
Fewest vulnerabilities doesn't mean it has the fewest flaws... Freezing, poor driver support, poor program support, these things are flaws, yet have nothing to do with security vulnerabilities. I love vista, i've run it since the betas and run a legal copy of ultimate that i paid for with my own money, and i've been able to generally make stuff work, but having to use workarounds to make stuff work is a flaw, in my opinion, and having good security is nice, but not if a bunch of stuff i've used for years doesn't work. I want to be an MS fanboy but i can't. I use vista at home because i can deal with it's shit, but i buy a new computer at the office, i make sure it has XP, because reliability is king at work. Lack of a reliability is too big of a deal to leave it out of the category of "flaws"... -Taylor
In practice this rarely happens though, at least to me. If some nutjob seriously was harassing you with lots of texts, your probably could get a refund if you called customer service and explained the situation. It's rare enough that i think they'd be okay with that. Besides, yes, we have to pay for incoming texts, but that's factored into most plans so most of the time they're all still "free" within the bounds of the plan. Assuming we don't go over our limit, it doesn't matter which party gets a text deducted from that limit, does it? We all pay to support the network in the end... -Taylor
I guess that if people need help choosing a car, there are too many features too? And Computers. Oh, and microwaves. Oh, and toasters. Yeah, they all have too many features if anyone exists that doesn't know enough on their own... We should all have the same phone, so no decision is necessary. Oh, and the same cars. And computers. And microwaves. Toasters though, those are okay as is. Variety is good, and not everyone will always know what they need. This is a natural part of a diverse market, and i'm certainly happy about it. I love my phone, but it's complicated as hell, and there are many people i wouldn't recommend it to, but they'd need an "expert" like me to explain why, and that doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If we did was you proposed and simplified them all, i'd be very disappointed... Hardly seems like a good solution then eh? -Taylor
Really? You include friends in that description... Is it really "ridiculous" if a friend wants to get coffee and doesn't want to bother you with a phone call? Texting is great because you can get the message just by looking at your phone, whenever you want, rather than answering it, which is often inconvenient and is certainly far more of a distraction than a text is. I'm just curious is all... -Taylor
sandwiches suck (sorry about the sandwich bias) -Taylor
Linky no worky, but i assume you meant something like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_ve37gVwxw Also, this reminded me of trigger happy TV (with all the flying circus i've seen, somehow i missed/forgot the sketch you were talking about). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RICCPdCtqVo :)
-Taylor
I just got a Thecus N2100 NAS for our office, and it rocks. It runs linux, so you can do whatever you want with it if you know how, but even if you don't (like me), it is still really easy to use. It holds 2 HDDs and i've mirrored them for safety, set up all the computers in the office to connect to it (on 2 different wired networks... it has 2 network ports, and can even be modded for wireless), and even set up FTP access for when i'm at home. It also functions as a USB print server that has some quirks but should be great for normal use, acts as an iTunes sharing device (shows up in the itunes shared computers sections), supports UPnP, and pretty much anything else you can throw at it. It was $275 or so without drives, and i love it! Oh, and it's also super silent. -Taylor here's the URL: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822102012
I've noticed that... I'm not a CS or a CE, i'm an ME, and i build robots. I'm great at the mechanical side but i always talk to Computer Engineers or CS majors, trying to see what they can do for me, and all i've surmised is that they just aren't taught anything useful! Sure, there's probably all kinds of great theory and whatnot, and that's all very important, but at the end they should have a class that teaches them the useful stuff! I say that because the guys i've spoken to were never taught how to make ANY kind of GUI, and have no idea how to send data out a serial port (something often neglected but very useful in robotics). In fact, even the head of the Computer Engineering dept at my school (Santa Clara University, supposedly 14th in the country for engineering) didn't know how to talk to a serial port. And not teaching how to make a GUI? I mean, i know you can figure it out, but then, what is the point of school? I know not all software goes to consumers, but if it does it had better have a GUI, so why not teach at least the basics!? And hardware output - either from the serial port or programming USB peripherals - is incredibly useful, yet seems to be completely left out of today's undergrad programs, and that seems insane! What has been your experience with this stuff? -Taylor
Yeah, but most of those are terrible for displaying computer output - most of what you listed are analog, which we obviously used for a long time, but analog video is obsolete now, so when you ask "do we need another interface?", if you're suggesting the analog methods are suffient, i'd say you're on crack. As for the new digital methods, i really only see DVI-D, HDMI, UDI, and DisplayPort for the dedicated display connections (sure there's USB and firewire, but until we get a universal connection method that is truly fast enough, and create video cards that can crunch high quality video while relaying it to said universal ports, i don't count those as viable formats for mainstream display connections). There's also wireless methods, but they're not there yet either.
My point is this: Do we need another format? Well, unless there is a current method that is sufficient for every possible current and forseeable future use, then the answer is yes, yes we do need another format. Since the analog ones are all terrible for today's digital displays and pixel-perfect (compared to analog) world, they're useless. Since the dell 30 incher's at least used to require TWO dvi connections, it seems like that's not good enough. I don't know enough about HDMI, UDI, or DisplayPort to judge between them, but if we've only got 3 possible connection methods that MIGHT even be ideal for today's technology, do we really have too many connection possibilities as you implied?
-Taylor
Clearly the teacher was on cocaine. -Taylor
Well, like you said, YOU hate reruns. I fail to see how what YOU hate has any bearing on what other people enjoy at all... Some people love reruns. -Taylor
Some books are written in the second person... Those claim "YOU" do certain actions, yet no one complains about those... (not that there are many, but still). -Taylor
Are you sure this is a normal feature of itunes and not a bad accident? It wouldn't make much sense... I've never uninstalled itunes, now that i think of it, but it sounds like you may have been just unlucky... And i love itunes. I don't need to qualify myself as techie or i wouldn't be here, but um, it works fine - it manages the files so i don't have to. When i want to add music i just drag it to itunes, and it moves the files to the necessary locations without me having to open explorer and do it manually. I can quickly make playlists, and listening to a specific artist is as fast as typing their name in the bar. I don't use an ipod, or any other DAP, 'cause i've found that i feel antisocial when i use them in public, and in my car i have a stereo with USB that's got 8 gigs of music on it, but itunes is great for just listening to music... What else do you want to do with it? Yeah, it used RAM and all that, but shouldn't techie's have fast enough computers not to notice anyway? -Taylor
E-paper is static - it stays where you left it, so you refresh it once per page and then remove power. That's what makes it so great for book reading and power comsumption. And yeah, like people mentioned, LCD's don't redraw pixels unless they change color. -Taylor